Family 2.0

I’m not exactly sure how I missed Trixie Tracker‘s launch last month, but the great thing about this blog and PDX Web Innovators is that I’m making some great connections with people here in Portland and this new network is a great place to learn about new things.

Anyway, I mention Trixie Tracker, because I’ve been following Family 2.0 applications like Trixie Tracker, Minti, Amiglia, and Families.com. I’ve had similar ideas in these areas, so it’s been interesting seeing them pop up.

Trixe Tracker attemtps to solve a piece of what I thought was missing in the existing apps; baby tools (tracking, sharing). You probably figured I’m big into tracking, being that’s what NetworthIQ is all about. Trixie Tracker doesn’t take care of it all though, I think there’s still some good opportunities in this area. But, Trixie Tracker appears to be a very useful app focused in on babies eating, sleeping, and you know what else schedules. The graphs and charts look very cool. I think it’s a bit too spendy (personally, I’d consider say a $20 annual subscription), but I respect them for charging off the bat for it. I’ve come to the conclusion (excuse me for stating the obvious) that if you’re going to bootstrap, charging is the best way to go. You may get away with a freemium business model, which is where we’re heading with NetworthIQ, but a pure ad-based revenue model will be a tough climb (NetworthIQ was never intended to be a pure ad-based model, but that’s all we have at the moment).

“It’s really hard to do anything else when you’re taking care of a baby/child/toddler”

and

“I could reliably count on writing about 3 or 4 lines of code a week.”

I know the feeling well, as idiot me managed to wait until we had a baby to get inspired enough to start building something. The absolute worst. timing. ever.

They even use a pretty similar “Track. Share. ….” slogan I coined for NetworthIQ. Just a coincidence? Who knows, I’m either flattered or know there’s somebody who thinks like I do. Either way is fine with me.

Update

Missed Cingo and MyHomePoint the first time around. Both are trying to provide tools to keep families organized. I’ll have to check these out a little more. For myself, I might really like them as I’m still trying to nail down a calendar app (even though there’s no shortage of them). But I’d have a hard time convincing my wife to keep it updated.

JotSpot has released JotSpot Family Site, which looks to be an easy way to get a family web site going, complete with a calendar, blogs, maps, etc. (via MOMB). They make no mention of ‘Wikis’ which is a smart move as I’d guess that a large percentage of people know what one is.

Update 4

A couple new ones to mention:

MothersClick – I’ll indulge with a link even though they issued a press release mother’s day weekend when the app isn’t even available yet. I thought that was a bit tacky.

Ookles – Billed as Flickr+YouTube+Riya for parents. The current intro page is incredibly annoying though. They’ve got a long way to go.

Update 5

Rachel Cook from Minti has started a blog, family2point0, to track these apps. Look there for new stuff.

19 Replies to “Family 2.0”

Do you really have enough traffic for a freemium model? My impression from the way Fred Willson presented it is that you’d have to have Flickr like traffic to make it work. Not to say that an ad model won’t work for something less than that.

Hi Brooks. Obviously, we don’t have Flickr like traffic, and that kind of traffic makes it easier to do, but I do think it can work for something less than that. I view it how Fred describes:
“A customer is only a click away and if you can convert them without forcing them into a price/value decision you can build a customer base fairly rapidly and efficiently. It is important that you require as little as possible in the initial customer acquisition process”

For our purposes, that means that basic tracking, sharing and comparing will be free to help us keep growing efficiently (and gather the data that becomes our competitive advantage), and enhanced financial tools and more detailed analysis will be a premium service for those interested in paying. PayScale/Salary.com are a good example of this. You can get a free salary report, but can choose to pay for a more detailed report.

Hi Ryan — thanks for including us in your post. Interesting stuff there, and boy can we relate. Our little girl is due in just a matter of weeks now and we’re feeling the countdown to it!

Our beta launch has been a thrill so far, so many users joining up and helping us iron out the wrinkles and come up with great new features. Watch out for a ton of new updates in the coming weeks and months

Paul, thanks for the update. Great to hear that things are going good and I’ll keep an eye on what you guys have coming out. Good luck in the coming weeks as you prepare for your little girl. Rest up 😉

Hi Ryan, Thanks for mentioning Trixie Tracker! I’m not yet qualified to comment on what makes a successful business model — and pricing can be a difficult issue — but do I wish you best of luck coding with a baby. It does get easier once they start sleeping through the night. Hang in there!

Hi Benmac, I agree, pricing is very difficult. Thanks for the tripleverb link, I realized that a lot of sites use these types of slogans, so figured it was probably a coincidence, I was just amused because I had a similar baby tracking app in my head too, and seeing that it had a similar tagline made me take a step back (who’s in my head 🙂 ?). Most of my ideas are spin-offs of other ideas anyways, taking something from over there and applying it to something over here, so I know how that goes.

I was very pleased to see the recent posts and articles about Family 2.0. I’ve developed a family and friend networking web application called Roundbook.com (www.roundbook.com).

I’ve labeled it as Family and Friends 2.0, since it allows private (safe) networking with both family and friends and takes advantage of blogs, pictures, interests, calendars, etc. It is in Beta form right now and available to the public.

I can relate with trying to build a web app that networks family members together while being a busy father. Its exciting to see these getting some publicity. I’ll definitely be watching here.

OurStory.com has a similar service, which allows you to share timelines of personal and family history. There is also a photo feature, as well as the ability to print a nicely bound book which you can give as a keepsake.

I’ve been following this for some time and wanted to let you know we finally launched our family site today. It’s a matching service designed to help families connect with other families in their local area. It’s offers a similar approach to what the dating sites offer for singles but it’s all about families and what’s important to them in relationships.

Our marketing and PR kick off next week but I thought I would post here now as we’re just starting to get the word out.

Wow it look like there are a lot of folks out there focusing on family and parenting…. it’s GREAT!

Well, I just wanted to let you know that we have launched our very own Parenting 2.0 site (yeap, one more), and it’s called RaisingThem.com. The focus is to get people to find each other (my previous site was a mom matching site), and create or join parenting groups…

One more for the list. Famiva (http://famiva.com) is a free online genealogy and private social network for families. It is a web2.0 collaboration platform for families with photo-sharing, family tree, maps, stories/blogs, etc.

Another to add to the list is FamilyPulse which is about to launch, which is focused more on the genealogy and family tree aspect of Family 2.0. Family tree charts, collaborative effort to share family photographs and stories about ancestors, and a great way to connect with immediate and extended family members!